Autonomous vehicles use a variety of sensors and computing devices to navigate the vehicle to a destination with various levels of input from a human driver. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has defined multiple levels of autonomous vehicle operation. At levels 0-2, the human driver monitors or controls the majority of the driving tasks, often with no help from the vehicle. For example, at level 0 (“no automation”), a human driver is responsible for all vehicle operations. At level 1 (“driver assistance”), the vehicle sometimes assists with steering, acceleration, or braking, but the driver is still responsible for the vast majority of the vehicle control. At level 2 (“partial automation”), the vehicle can control steering, acceleration, and braking under certain circumstances without human interaction. At levels 3-5, the vehicle assumes more driving-related tasks. At level 3 (“conditional automation”), the vehicle can handle steering, acceleration, and braking under certain circumstances, as well as monitoring of the driving environment. Level 3 requires the driver to intervene occasionally, however. At level 4 (“high automation”), the vehicle can handle the same tasks as at level 3 but without relying on the driver to intervene in certain driving modes. At level 5 (“full automation”), the vehicle can handle almost all tasks without any driver intervention.
Autonomous vehicles may group together to form a platoon. In the platoon, the vehicles utilize sensors, computing devices, and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication devices and protocols to travel in a compact line along a single lane of a road way. Autonomous vehicle platooning allows vehicles to travel much closer to each other in the line, as compared to being operated solely by the human driver, thereby increasing the efficiency of travel of the vehicles and reducing roadway congestion.